


a bend in the wind

by fanforfanatic



Series: Destiel Drabbles [24]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bittersweet, Castiel (Supernatural)'s Loss of Grace, Damaged wings, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Domestic Fluff, Light Angst, Loss of Grace, M/M, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 01:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanforfanatic/pseuds/fanforfanatic
Summary: This time, Cas' transition from angel to human is slow and deliberate.





	a bend in the wind

Cas is back from purgatory. And Dean breathes again.

For weeks he held his breath the way he did hope, firmly and with both hands. Kept it tucked in his chest’s cage, the one made of bone and grief, because it was all he could do. But Cas is back now.

The first night they’re together again is like a first time. What theirs would have been if it wasn’t quick and quiet on a bed of dirt with Benny guarding the perimeter. There was always urgency there, a crackle in the air to remind them that staying put would get them dead and going slow would have to wait.

Dean forgets, pulling at belt buckles and zippers with frenzy as soon as Sam leaves the motel room. Cas catches his rough hands, stills them in his warm ones, skin dry and reassuring against Dean’s.

“We can take our time,” Cas murmurs like a promise. He presses Dean’s hands to his chest and cups his face instead. “Let me,” he says, lips so close they share air, “take my time.”

Dean twists his fingers into that damn trench coat, shuts his eyes tight against the tenderness, and nods, giving into Cas.

-

Cas gets his own room in the bunker but it’s for him to have, not use. He and Dean share a bed. Dean picks it out—memory foam with down pillows—but Cas is the one who never wants to leave it especially loose limbed and post-orgasm. Especially with Dean pressed to his bare back. With strong arms bracketing his sides and soft touches at his hips. With the cold tip of Dean’s nose running up his spine, chased by wet lips along the edge of his hairline.

“You don’t even need sleep,” Dean calls him out once, all smiles and tease, heart lighter than it could ever be outside this safe space.

Cas laughs and puts Dean on his back. But he looks tired.

-

They nest, filling the bunker’s shelves with books that aren’t all lore, novels they love and plan to love given the time, buying decorative pillows in plaid and thick throw blankets in fleece and an entertainment system in XL for the full cinematic experience. Cas keeps jars of peanut butter in the cupboard like he’s hoarding for the next apocalypse, and goes through honey drop candies by the bag. It’s nice for Cas that not everything tastes like, what was it? Mud? Whatever it was, Dean makes him a peanut butter pie.

On Charlie’s first visit, she asks what this place is, and Sam tells her about Henry, and the Men of Letters, and how they’re _legacies_. Dean calls it home.

“Well in that case…” Charlie swings her backpack to the front, unzips it, and pulls out one of many liquor bottles with a clink. “Time for a homewarming.”

It’s a good time. The best time. They drink, and they argue about Star Wars, and Dean performs _Eye of the Tiger_ , and Sam forces water bottles into everyone’s hands, and Cas laughs all night and _giggles_ once, face flushed like he’s feeling the booze.

-

He and Cas are archiving storage room F on a lower level when he finds the glasses, large and thick rimmed and coated with a layer of dust as dense as the lense.

He snorts. “Hey, check it out. Old timey glasses.” He wipes them clean with the sleeve of the flannel tied around his hips, and finds the frame beneath the grime charred. “Oh,” he says. “These were doused in holy fire, Cas. Mark that.”

Cas hums from his stool by the door where he’s digitizing the shitty catalogue the Moles kept, and noting Dean’s findings. Dean slips on the glasses, soot leaving his fingertips stained, and looks over.

He misses them at first.

The ring of light suspended above Cas buzzes and blinds, and as soon as his eyes adjust it glows brighter. It drowns Cas’ body, until Dean realises it’s all Cas’ body. _Cas_ is lustre and gold and radiance.

And then he sees them.

Like a terrible backdrop, a looming shadow. Wings large and spread wide, majestic in the way of a collapsed kingdom. They’re threadbare where Dean always imagined them full, dark plumes missing in bunches, worn thin enough that Dean can trace bone with his eyes.

“Cas,” Dean doesn’t say, the name dead on his tongue.

Cas looks up anyway, and yanks his wings close, tucks them behind his back like shame.

“It’s nothing,” Cas blurts.

“Cas.” It’s below a whisper, lost in a borrowed breath.

“Take them off,” Cas says. He jumps to his feet and says it again, sounding just as broken as his wings look. “Take them off!”

Dean flings them off his face, and they skitter across the concrete.

What was he supposed to do? How’s Dean supposed to make up for another loss? He expects the hits to keep coming, but he never considered there might be a world of ‘em he had no clue of. Ones he can’t even fucking see.

“It’s alright,” Cas says when it can’t be. And then, “I promise.”

Dean hears him. Hears _please_ . Hears _let this go_.

He moves closer, tentative in a way he hasn’t had to be around Cas in a long time. He kisses him, holds him close, pulls them down to their knees, then to their sides where they warm the ground. Dean imagines Cas’ light bathing the both of them.

-

Cas is naked and snoring when Dean slips the glasses back on. It’s wrong but Dean’s been a far cry from _good_ for a long time. The halo’s dimmer now, and it flickers like the worst omen, appearing as a dull metal ring between bursts of light. Cas rolls over with a sleepy grunt, and his wings follow clumsily like too many limbs. They leave a handful of feathers behind, scattered horrors, and Dean picks up each one.

They’re soft, more fragile than they have the right to be, so Dean’s careful not to crush them in his tense hands.

“I shouldn’t have shouted.” Cas’ eyes are open, and so blue, even down here, even beneath his halo, but Dean’s never noticed the wrinkles that edge them. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Dean asks.

“I didn’t want them to alarm you. There’s no need for that.”

Dean shakes his head. “Why are more falling?” He sounds like purgatory, raw with fear.

Cas’ smile is soft. He’s calmer than before. “Dean, you’re not to worry yourself about this.” Bullshit.

“I thought it happened in hell. When you saved me.”

With a sigh Cas moves to his knees, mirroring Dean, and brings one wing forward. It curls jaggedly into the space between them. “This did.”

Dean’s heart drops so low it might as well be back in the pit. The tip is scorched, and even a light graze from Dean’s sandpaper hands would turn it to ash.

“Hellfire caught it on the way up.” It. _A manifestation of grace,_ Cas told him once.

Dean says, “And the rest?”

“Over time.” Cas draws his wing back so it joins its twin. It looks like a reflex, like Cas has made a habit out of hiding them, even from himself.

“It’s an ongoing thing?” And then, choking on the truth, “It’s an ongoing thing.”

Cas nods. This isn’t something they can fix.

“This whole time… But why—”

_Oh._

“It’s me. Being on earth, not being in heaven, _whichever._ That’s what’s doing this to you.” The divine is ebbing out of him and Dean’s been letting it. Cas has been eating and sleeping, because he has to. Drinking because he can.

Dean frees the feathers from his grasp like they’ve burned him instead of the other way around, and their slow fall is a long taunt. He shuffles back. He needs to put space between them, needs to never touch Cas again, needs to stop poisoning everything.

“Dean—”

“No.” He’s shaking, bones trembling. “No.”

Cas crawls close, and their knees touch. He takes Dean’s hands in his, and then he takes them again when Dean rips them away. “Look at me.”

Dean’s going to be sick.

“Look at me,” he says even gentler, as though Dean isn’t the one clawing and plucking parts of him away. He tilts Dean’s face up and keeps a hand there, cradling his jaw. “You’re not to blame for this...change.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean croaks, and Cas swipes his thumb over silent tears.

“It’s not because of you. It’s us. Being together, the way I want us to be—it has a price.”

“Cas, you’re giving up too much.” This isn’t a big bad taking his grace away. This is Dean robbing him of it.

Cas shakes his head and smiles like he knows a secret. Like he’s certain. “I chose you a long time ago, Dean. Over everything else. And every day, I’ll choose you again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on that [tumbz](https://fanforfanatic.tumblr.com/)


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